Lately I’ve been wondering how it is that politicians, actors, professionals of all kinds, etc are able to churn out these books within apparently short periods of time. Writing a book, especially a best seller, or at least one that gets some media coverage, has always seemd to me to be the ultimate way to “leave behind a legacy”. I’d love to feel like my being on this world has made a difference.
How does one not only get one book done, but then a second, third, and so on. Writing a book while pursuing a seemingly successful career seems even more improbable. Add to that the ability to raise (or even to just be a minimally contributing member of) a family seems even more impossible. So, how do these politicians (or whoever) do this, and how do they do this in such a short period of time?
I’m sure that some have ghost writers, others have co-writers, and there are still others just make notes or recordings and have professionals then write the book based on that. Of course, it helps to have editors and publishers lined up, too.
But some of these books have quite some content and research, while others quite obviously don’t. Does the turnover time just seem “short” in some cases? There must also be quite a correlation between time spent on developing the book versus quality. How does one measure quality is another good question. Is it profitability and sales volume, or longevity of message and universality of readership? The latter would be of most value to me.
